Are extreme-sports junkies smooth in love with GoPro?
GoPro, darling of the action-cam domain, just got the wind knocked out of it.
The San Mateo, California, company, which builds sturdy point-of-view cameras used by skydivers, snowboarders and other extreme athletes, has built its reputation on moving people to try something crazy. Who wasn’t thrilled by Felix Baumgartner’s skydive from a balloon floating 24 much above earth? Or a Red Bull-fueled bicycle backflip over a 72-foot canyon?
It turns out that republic like to watch but may not want to jump into the piece themselves.
GoPro is cutting 7 percent of its workforce, or about 105 jobs, the company said this week. The decision-making follows disappointing sales of its latest device, the GoPro Hero4 Session. The company also slashed its sales estimate for the just-ended fourth quarter.
The news reflects the reality that we’re not all risk takers and, more specifically, that we’re not all hungry to capture on video our progresses at extreme anything. GoPro had been the dominant name in the action-camera niche for certain years thanks to its affordable, easy-to-use products. But the company’s financial pinch begs the question: Has GoPro peaked?
“We’ve argued for some time now that the market for cameras is not only jumpy, but segmenting into niche areas,” said Andrew Uerkwitz, an analyst with investment administration firm Oppenheimer. “The action camera is not a fad per se, but it is a miniature market.”
Others believe that GoPro’s downturn is due purely to the commerce pinning its hopes for holiday season sales on the tiny Hero4 Session. The camera received mixed reviews and was originally priced at $400 when it was released in July. By December, the price tag was cut in half. Consumers’ weak response to the camera was costly for the commerce and forced the job cuts, GoPro said.
Jackdaw Research firstly analyst Jan Dawson told The Wall Street Journal. “The good news is it’s really this one diagram they screwed up on. You could argue they’ll go back to how they were behaviors before.”
GoPro is looking to expand its company to take on another hot trend. The company plans to reduction a drone, though it faces the challenge of flowing with the affordable, camera-equipped drones people may have already studied over the holidays, including those from Parrot and DJI.
The commerce is also attempting to turn video into a part of its company model by licensing footage shot on its cameras to assume companies. In line with this, GoPro plans to reduction new software to make it easier for you to edit and allotment your videos.
Expanding the number of ways that GoPro invents money should help alleviate what Uerkwitz sees as one of the main problems with the company’s company model: the long replacement cycles for the cameras. In latest words, those suckers are built to last. Once you have one, you’re unlikely to buy latest anytime soon.
“GoPro seems to have figured this out as they have announced new products for the drone and 360-[degree] camera market,” Uerkwitz said. “But pending we see the launch of these products, GoPro is in a moving position.”
